WHY LITERATURE?

Good question.  My mother is no fan of fiction.  "Fiction isn't true," she says, and therefore has little interest.  Christina Bieber Lake, author of The Incarnational Art of Flannery O'Connor (and Associate Professor of English at Wheaton College), looks at literature differently.  She discusses questions faced by technologically advanced nations and says  (p. 46 of the pdf):

. . . While some might say that our rapidly changing biotech culture proves that the study of literature can be only an ivory tower indulgence, I believe that problems like these prove that we cannot not afford to study literature.  Literature trains the moral imagination--that faculty that is uniquely able to challenge culture's cherished assumptions. . .

For example, Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "The Birth-Mark" teaches us that behind the desire for beauty there may lurk a narcissism that is disdainful of real people.  Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" teaches us that

a social utopian's vision of the good life might be, in fact, quite ugly.  Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake" teaches us how our culture is shaping young people who, in the name of "progress," see no problem with sacrificing humanity to attain it.  Literary fiction can shock us into seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly -- and the real difference between them.  As Flannery O'Connor puts it, "I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality.  It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system." 

Why study literature?  Because in some ways it has never been more important for us to know who we are-- and where we are really going."

Me:  Agree?  Disagree?